The Cherry Trees
by alcyonejonquil
Summary: Illia is a most diligent apprentice, and Ancano finds himself a bit overwhelmed. As he often does, now. After all, this is what his new life entails. (Fluff. Part 5 of "How You Appear", can be considered a companion piece to "Heart".)


A life spent in wonder, indeed. And what a supremely odd concept would that have been, back in the days of gritted teeth, misplaced ambitions, and endless lingering in dark corners!

The last time the cherry trees had to be in full bloom along the winding paths from Shimmerene to Cloudrest, he had recalled their beauty as he paced around his narrow quarters at the College; he'd believed he knew reverence, then, and abnegation. Love for home and country that breeds duty that brings sternly-sworn oaths that must always take precedence. Always. Years, by the hundreds, gone by in that exact manner.

What meaning can those even hope to hold, however, compared to the taste of your beloved's lips, the soft hum of aetherial energy blending with her breathless sighs to create harmonies so magnificent, they defy every conceivable law? All doctrines fall apart without a trace, like the suffocating drivel they are, leaving behind a measure of guilt that's quick to bury itself deep so as not to stand in the way.

She renders it so effortless, forgetting. Whenever he thinks he's finally reached the limit of his ability to love, when it seems another drop would wrench the soul from his body and send it soaring to the skies above, he is proven wrong. Never, never enough wonder.

Book laying on the end table, the story he'd been reading aloud long finished, he finds himself dozing off to the sound and feel of Lilly's gentle breathing. Tangled together on their bed, her head and one of her palms resting on his chest. Untold peace, being so near to her.

He is absolutely sure she's fallen asleep, when some of the pressure on his sternum is suddenly gone. A noise coming from the left, barely noticeable. He stays perfectly still, peeking through his eyelashes, and sees her wide awake, the lightest furrowing to her brow. Her hand moves languidly in the air on a somewhat random trajectory, aimed towards the other side of the room.

They have not gone over Telekinesis for at least a fortnight, focusing on other subjects instead, yet here she is, practising. And she's doing some marvellous work, as well. Movements restrained, focus steady, efficient use of Magicka…all considerable improvements.

His teaching, of course, is mediocre at best, regardless of her assurances to the contrary. Only a passing interest in his youth, promptly cast aside once he'd received his first Thalmor assignment. Oh, but what a tremendous difference does a gifted, dedicated student make, to even the poorest instructor!

The flicker of an idea takes shape in his mind; with agonizing slowness, he caresses her slender wrist, brings it closer, and softly kisses the pads of her fingers.

If it weren't for the hitch in her breath, she would appear wholly unperturbed. He watches, with a smile he knows she can feel against her skin, a large copper bowl waver for merely a second, before landing with a flourish back on the dresser it had been sitting on.

She shifts to look at him, then, glaring with playful reproach, one eyebrow raising at his surprise.

"Impressive," he says. "I'd thought you would drop it, for certain."

Lilly gives him a smug look as she leisurely runs her thumb across his lips.

"It would take much more than your attentions to distract me—as lovely as they may be."

Voice a little rough from her having been silent for so long, and he can't help the shiver of desire coursing through him at the sound.

"Besides," she carries on, rising slightly, "hands are just a conduit we use for convenience's sake. Does magic reside in our fingers? No, it comes from deep within us—in theory, if our will were strong enough, we shouldn't even need free hands to cast. We are pretty much dependent on them for all non-magical things, so we flail them about instinctively, without considering any alternatives!"

Her words are increasingly animated, and by the time she reaches the end, she's perched even further on top of him.

"Hmm...all right," he replies. "I see your point. I swear I must have heard this being mentioned somewhere—we should look into it when we next find ourselves near a library. Experiment with it, until then, perhaps there are some conclusions to be drawn. Though, Love," he says, raising his eyebrows, "we should refrain from trying it out on certain spells—Bound Weapons, for instance; a sword shooting from your forehead does not seem like a pleasant experience."

She lets out a huff of pretend annoyance.

"Oh, very well, _m__aster_ Ancano. I did say 'in theory', didn't I?"

Long strands of dark hair against the white of her nightdress, tingling where they spill on his bare arms as he holds her tightly.

"You are _brilliant_, Lady Illia," he whispers into the crown of her head. "You pick up everything so swiftly and easily—you humble me. There's more talent in the tips of your ears than I possess in my entire body. I told you that."

The praise makes her squirm briefly, but she lets the sweet press of her lips right above his heart be her only answer.

_Her _heart, no longer his, he corrects himself. For it lies snugly in her delicate grip, has lain there since the day they met for the first time.

Minutes pass, blissfully, unerringly, and he glances at the object she's picked as her target earlier.

"You know you can learn how to transmute minerals, yes? Turn copper into silver or gold? Maybe we ought to start on that, once we get tired of wards," he muses. "Alternating between schools would bring some much-needed variation, wouldn't you agree?"

There's a hint of a shadow across her features that was not there before. When she speaks, it's in _that_ tone, the one he's so well-acquainted with and dreads with every fibre of his being.

"One of my mother's...colleagues would do that, once in a while. Transmutation. Most of the coven resented her for it—she could turn the iron ore we'd collect from travellers into silver. As a trick, mostly, there were no smiths around to give it any purpose."

Her eyes narrow marginally as she tries to remember.

"I asked her once, you see. Why she wasn't able to turn it into gold or malachite, so we could sell it and make a nicer profit. She must have thought me a bit too arrogant for her tastes, since that earned me a good scolding from Mother. But I was right; she couldn't. Iron to silver, and nothing else."

"Well, she must have been more than a little...dim, shall we say. The knowledge and imagination of a goat, that one."

The laughter that escapes her is more glorious to his ears than any music on Nirn.

"It's true, though, is it not?" he asks, chuckling alongside her. "I'd be curious to hear how she'd even achieved it at all, as she'd failed to grasp the very principle? How was it that 'Reality and Other Falsehoods' put it?"

"Something along the lines of...'a mage solely needs to convince the forces that control reality that it would be better, or simpler, to alter it according to his or her suggestion,' I believe."

"See, then, how incredibly daft that was of a witch! What does a particular piece of matter care if it has, at one point, been copper and is now made to be silver? Or adamantium? As long—"

"As long as you're persuasive enough," she finishes for him, gaze twinkling with excitement, "you can tell iron to become anything and it will obey."

A pause. She lays her head back down onto his shoulder, deep in contemplation.

"And, after all, it's not as if metals weren't inherently similar to each other—I didn't tell her to turn that ore into a ball of yarn, for Julianos' sake! Iron and gold, honestly..."

She's still analysing Alteration principles, when he becomes powerless to resist gently tilting her chin up and catching her mouth with his. And while he pours into the kiss all the love billowing inside him like a pyre, he thinks of her, and thinks of Alinor.

_I will take you to the cherry trees._ _If only so I could __watch__ them __pale and w__aste away__ with envy at __the sight of you, I will._

* * *

**This obviously takes place a fair while after 'Crutch', when they've both had time to work through some of their baggage together.**

**I just needed an excuse to write some fluff for this mad pairing that's wormed its way into my heart and will not go away. The relationship definitely has its problems (as outlined in my other fics) and they may not be quite the least troubled people on Nirn, but I'll be damned if they do not make sense and if this isn't a hill I'm willing to die on.**


End file.
